


In Vino Veritas

by thisiszircon



Series: Unfinished Business [1]
Category: Ashes to Ashes (UK TV)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:55:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25897069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisiszircon/pseuds/thisiszircon
Summary: Alex has just said goodbye.  So why is she unable to move on?
Relationships: Alex Drake/Gene Hunt
Series: Unfinished Business [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1879288
Comments: 23
Kudos: 37





	In Vino Veritas

"You can't die with an unfinished book."  
Terry Pratchett, 1948-2015

The Railway Arms was warm, light and brimming with humanity: music and laughter and chatting and flirting and comradeship. Alex swallowed hard against the grief – three losses, _three_ losses, bang-bang-bang – and then drew a deep breath.

Time to face whatever was to come next.

She looked up. She wanted to see Ray and Chris and Shaz. She wanted to settle into a corner with them and talk about...about everything. About her three losses. About the Guv. About–

The Railway Arms was empty. Empty apart from the landlord, Nelson, who stood in place behind the bar and smiled a wide smile.

"Welcome," he called over. "What're you havin'?"

Alex frowned. She looked around in confusion. There were, very definitely, only two people present, and she was one of them. The sounds she'd heard as she came through the door were gone. All that was left was an abstract sense of warmth: an atmosphere of togetherness.

"Wh-what just happened?" she asked. She made her way over to the bar because if she didn't, she was afraid that her legs would turn her around and take her back out into the street again.

Nelson shrugged. "Besides you walkin' in through that door? You tell me."

She reached the bar and sat herself down on a stool. "Where did everyone go?" She tried not to be too unsettled. After the revelations of the past two days, it was probably about time she accepted that this world would occasionally take a swerve towards the surreal.

"Ah, no one stays here long. This is more of a passing-through kind o' place."

"Shaz? Where's Shaz?"

"Happy and at peace, me hopes."

Alex studied Nelson. He was exactly as Sam had described him. She remembered the conversations she and Sam had shared so vividly now. As if the veil that had been obscuring her memories had been whipped away.

"You can drop the accent, you know," she said. "Sam told me."

The Jamaican patois turned into a faintly nasal Mancunian twang. "You like this better, our kid?"

Alex considered. "Right now, I think what I like is truth. Honesty. Which accent is more honest?"

"Sounds like style over substance to me," Nelson replied. "The accent doesn't change the words."

"But it can help when people pretend to be something they're not, and I'm rather tired of that."

He tilted his head, perhaps in understanding, and said, "I'm a bartender. Whether I talk like my parents or my customers, I pour pints and I listen to troubled souls."

"You're a gatekeeper," Alex corrected him. "A spirit guide. And you were Sam's friend. Is Sam here?" She looked around, and realised there was a part of her that wouldn't have been overly surprised to see him walk out of a nearby wall, or appear as a reflection in the mirror beneath the optics.

"No, love. Moved on long since, him and his missus."

Alex frowned. "Missus? Annie...god, when did I forget that? Annie wasn't just his girlfriend, Annie was his _wife_."

"Love of his life," Nelson agreed. Then he gave a small smile. "Well, one of them. But you'd know all about that, eh? Now. What're you havin', DI Alex Drake?"

Alex gave a sigh. She glanced back to the door, but she had the impression that it no longer led out on to that east London street. "Red wine," she decided. "Large one."

"Comin' up." Nelson reached under the bar and produced a bottle that he proceeded to uncork.

"I'm happy with 'house', you know," Alex said.

"I think you deserve the good stuff after the day you've had." Nelson poured from the bottle and handed her a glass. "Second glass'll taste better, when you've both had chance to breathe."

Alex nodded and sipped. She glanced at Nelson over the rim of her glass. "Hard to breathe when you're dead."

"And yet you've been doing just that for months."

"And Gene's been doing it for decades."

"His choice."

Alex nodded again. She tried a smile for her new friend. "Will you join me?"

Nelson glanced around. "Well, it's a quiet night, innit? I could risk a glass." He poured from the bottle for himself. "Might as well get comfy, eh? You've probably got a lot o' questions."

"Probably. I might even remember what they are in a minute."

"When your heart stops breaking?"

Alex swallowed and said, "Oh, I don't think it's going to do that any time soon."

Nelson nodded his sympathy, and he moved to the end of the bar and out into the lounge. He came around to join her and took a seat.

"Can I ask _you_ something?" he asked.

"Aren't you all-knowing?" Alex countered.

"Not even close." At her pointed look he conceded, "I know more than some, less than others."

"Fair enough. Fine. Fire away."

"Why did you never tell him?"

She considered playing dumb for just a second, before recent memories persuaded her against it. She'd spent her time here keeping secrets, and having secrets kept from her. It was, when all was said and done, an exhausting process. So she looked at her wine glass and gave a small shrug. "Honestly? I didn't know myself until five minutes ago."

"You hid from it. Doesn't mean you didn't know."

Alex frowned and swivelled on her stool to face Nelson. "How do _you_ know?"

"Hey, I'm a black man in a world that's largely defined by Gene Hunt. I'm either gonna be some exotic shaman with mystical insight or a drug-dealer."

She laughed. She could see why Sam had liked this man so much. "Perhaps you're both," she suggested, and raised her glass to him. "Alcohol is a drug."

"True. And here? Won't even rot your liver."

"A definite upside," she agreed. "Mind you, I might not have needed the booze as a coping mechanism if I'd had you to talk to. I'm rather jealous of Sam in that regard."

"I couldn't tell Sam as much as he'd've liked."

"But he said he always had the impression you understood. He was right, wasn't he?"

"He was right a lot of the time. But it's what being human's all about, end of the day, innit? Connecting? Finding someone who's _simpatico_. Someone who understands."

The idea resonated for her, and Alex nodded. "Martin Summers once said something similar to me."

"There y'are then. Spot of common ground, Bob's your uncle."

"I suppose. Still, I'd have liked to see Sam again."

"Maybe you will."

She looked at Nelson sharply. "I suppose you should know, shouldn't you?"

"Ah, no. Whatever comes next? That's not for me. Not yet."

"So you don't know what I can expect?"

"Not an inkling."

"But you're the gatekeeper," she pressed.

"Amongst other things."

"So why am I sitting here drinking wine with you? I came inside, I felt...there was-there was a flash. I think. I was distracted."

"You came inside. And in here? I set the rules."

"So you made the other people go away?"

"The people – ah, all the people – they're seeped into the walls of this old place," Nelson said in a musing tone, glancing around the fixtures and fittings of the pub. "Echoes of memories. Transient souls."

"But when Sam and the G-...when Gene used to come here? In the seventies, when..." She frowned and gave a half-laugh. "When this place wasn't quite so London-based?"

"Gene Hunt is the heart of this world," Nelson replied. "I'm never far away."

"This place stopped being his watering hole of choice, though. After he moved."

Nelson shrugged. "What happened with Sam, three years ago – it was hard for him. Too near the knuckle."

"It almost forced him to remember," she realised.

"He certainly needed to work harder at forgettin'." Nelson gave a light sigh. "So he shifted south. Turned his back on the things, might remind him. Including me. For a while."

Alex studied the barman. "Did it bother you?"

"I knew he'd come round. In the end. I have faith in that man."

"Me too," she murmured. A sniff. "So Gene adopted the restaurant instead. Luigi's."

"He likes a place where he can hold court," Nelson said with a wry smirk.

"Mmm. Not sure Luigi always appreciated it." She frowned at a stray thought. "Was Luigi...?"

"A lost and troubled soul," Nelson said. "Murdered by an Italian police officer after he went into witness protection. A police officer in the pay of the Mafia. All he ever wanted was to go home. See his mama again. And now? He has."

Alex nodded thoughtfully. "So it isn't just coppers that find their way here?"

"Not every copper. Just the ones with baggage. And others too – those souls whose baggage is all mixed up with coppers. There's a kind of symmetry, don't you think?"

"And my baggage?"

"You were shot in the head on a river barge. What was your last thought, eh? Maybe something along the lines of how Molly'd be going through the same thing you went through? I'm not wrong, am I?"

"No, you're not wrong," Alex admitted.

"Well then. How could that guilt leave you alone?"

Three losses. Bang-bang-bang. They'd hit her so fast she'd barely had the time to react. Or even recognise them for the three distinct losses that they were, come to that.

"I'll never see her again," Alex said. Her voice wavered. She'd hardly remembered Molly in recent months – maybe a part of her hadn't _wanted_ to remember, for the sake of protecting herself, for the sake of her sanity – but right now the loss was raw. Her little girl.

"Maybe you will. Maybe you'll go on a picnic with her, you and Sam and Annie. And Ray, Chris, Shaz. You'll all of you settle down around a hamper, and you'll eat and drink and laugh and worry about ants on the sandwiches."

Alex grinned. "Sounds like heaven to me."

Nelson grinned back. "Ready for a top-up, Alex?"

~~~

"So Christian mythology got it right?" Alex asked as her second glass of wine dwindled. "Heaven, hell, the devil?"

"Christianity doesn't have the monopoly on karmic reward," Nelson said. "But the words fit well enough."

"And Jim Keats – he's the devil."

"Oh, no. Might be he likes to think he is, but he's no more the devil than Gene Hunt is an angel."

"So what is he?"

"An agent. An instrument. The high-ups, they don't have no truck here. That's what makes it purgatory."

"And there are other places like this? For different kinds of people, different souls?"

"There's thousands."

"All defined by their own Gene Hunt?"

"Some like that. Some different."

"But this place must have existed before Gene died. Coppers with baggage have been dying a lot longer than Queen Elizabeth the Second has been on the throne."

"Before this place they had another."

"So why did this place happen? Why Gene Hunt?"

"The devil's an opportunist. You should know that by now."

Alex considered how Jim Keats had only appeared and guided her along the path that led to Gene's grave after she'd lost her faith in the Guv. Just by a smidgeon. Just by enough. "Yeah."

Nelson inhaled through his nose and let the breath out in a sigh. "Angry young copper, dead before his time," he said. "Filled with a rigid sense of justice and a love of machismo. Happy to stick the boot in, even when he's...beating up the wrong guy, perhaps?"

Alex shot him a glance. "Very funny."

"Not for the wrong guy."

She shook her head. "Just because he's fallible doesn't mean he can work for evil."

"Your lips to the devil's ears. But the devil doesn't listen very well. And so this angry young dead-man is given a world. His own little patch of purgatory. And the souls drawn to it are prime real estate. Resentful souls, frustrated souls, guilt-ridden souls, all wanting to lash out at injustice. At any cost."

Alex thought she understood. "The devil thought it could turn more souls away from redemption if Gene was in charge."

"Now you gettin' it!" Nelson crowed, and the Jamaican patois was back.

"Only it didn't work out, did it?" Alex said. "For all his faults, Gene's a decent man. I mean–" She stopped and gave a breathy, enlightened laugh. "God, I even _saw_ it. I saw him forgive, saw him offer absolution. Lost souls who should be heading downstairs, and he found the spark. Found it, nursed it, made it flare back into life. Even as they died in his arms, he found it." Reminding Martin Summers of the reasons that man had become a policeman. Telling her that Supermac was a good soul underneath the bribery and corruption, and then proving himself right as Mac tried to atone for his sins.

"Turned out he has a talent for it," Nelson agreed, defaulting to his soft Mancunian. "The devil don't like that."

"So the devil sent Keats to take Gene down. And to do that he had to take advantage of the crack in the armour. Me."

"Wasn't your fault, love."

"But it was, wasn't it? I mean, really? I was the one who told Gene I was from another time. And he'd forgotten. He'd forgotten that his world isn't real, and I made him question that conviction." She stared at the wine in her glass but her thoughts were stuck in the past. "He got so angry." A small laugh. "I mean, he gets angry at the drop of a hat, but the way he looked at me that day..." Alex closed her eyes and lowered her head. "Small wonder, really. In hindsight."

"Aye, well, he didn't have to go and shoot you, did he?"

"It was an accident." She'd never believed the words more.

"Of course it was. But it gave the devil a way in. And the thing about accidents? They aren't _your_ fault."

Alex shook her head and drained her glass. "I should have had more faith."

"In a man who wouldn't answer a simple question?"

"He _couldn't_ answer. Every time I made him think about Sam, he came close to remembering."

"That wasn't your fault either."

"I know." She set her glass aside and heard her breath catch. "I'm so sorry. I'm a bit of a wreck at the moment."

"That'll happen when so much hits you, all at once."

"Three losses," she acceded. "No more Molly. No more Gene. No more Alex."

"Alex is sitting right here," Nelson pointed out.

"You know what I mean."

"And are you sure about the 'no more Gene'?"

"I came in here, didn't I?"

"Aye, you did. And like I said – I set the rules here."

The realisation hit her with something of a shock. "It was you. You stopped me from moving straight on."

"You're not ready. Ask me how I know."

"How do you know?"

Nelson reached forward and took her hand in his. Though she'd only met the man twenty minutes ago, Alex didn't feel uncomfortable with the gesture.

"Moving on requires that you set the baggage down. Shaz did so months ago. Ray too. Chris – just a few days ago. But you? You haven't found that moment of clarity. Not yet."

Alex gave a frown. "They saw stars. Like me. I-I thought I was the same as them."

"You saw stars because the world was fracturing. Every step you took closer to that shallow grave? There was a cost. But you haven't found your peace yet."

"How am I supposed to do that?"

"First you have to want it."

"Everyone wants peace."

"Not if it takes them away from the one they love."

Nelson poured the last of the wine into their two glasses. He didn't seem either bothered or confused when Alex's breath hitched hard, and then she began to softly cry.

~~~

She didn't cry for long. Nor did she cry the way she needed to. She was in the company of an almost-stranger, after all. There were intimacies you could only really earn with time, no matter how insightful and charming and trustworthy you were.

For the few minutes it took her to pull herself together, Nelson swivelled on his stool to face the main body of the pub. It had been his polite way of making her feel less scrutinised. He was humming to himself under his breath, as if there was nothing odd about sharing a bar with a grown woman who was weeping into a glass of rather good _Cabernet Sauvignon_.

"How can I be dead?" she asked, when she could speak coherently again. "I mean, all this? I can taste this wine, smell stale cigarette smoke." She reached up and traced the edge of her lip. "I can still feel his kiss." She sighed. "And my chest is hurting. Shouldn't the dead be beyond pain?"

Nelson shrugged. "I once told Sam Tyler that when you can feel, you're alive, and when you don't feel then you're not."

"But I'm not alive."

"You feel like you are. You've felt like that for three years. What's the difference?"

"The difference is that my little girl no longer has a mother!"

"She has a father. And she has Evan. And she knows her mum died doing a job she was proud to do. Molly was proud of the job you do too. She'll hurt, and she'll grieve, and she'll go on with her life just like you did. Except she'll always, always know that her mother adored her. And when she dies in her sleep, surrounded by her family, at the ripe old age of ninety-eight? Any baggage she takes with her will have nothing to do with the traumas of her childhood."

"Don't do that," Alex snapped. She narrowed her eyes. "Don't absolve me."

"Why? Scared o' movin' on?"

Her anger flared at the words, but then – just as swiftly – it dissipated. She was too tired for anger. "I don't know, Nelson. I don't know what to do."

"Sure you do. You'll do what you've always done. You'll go where you're needed and you'll make a difference."

"Hold back the tide of scum?"

"This world has plenty o' bad guys. Souls bound for a darker place than this. And if they die out there, that's where they're headed. Unless they find their redemption, of course."

"This world doesn't need me to do that."

"This world has Gene Hunt at the heart of it, and his heart is breaking just like yours is right now."

"He sent me in here!"

"He's not immune to guilt. Decades, Alex. Decades, he's lived the fantasy. Gary Cooper. Clint Eastwood. And yesterday he found out that the people he cared about the most were trapped in limbo because of him."

"That wasn't his fault."

Nelson leaned closer, and the gesture was a little bit conspiratorial. "But isn't it a novelty? Gene Hunt finally taking responsibility for his actions?"

"He did it with Sam. He let Sam go."

"And he let you go." Nelson shook his head. "He _needed_ you to go. Not because he didn't want you to stay. Because he knew there was a good chance he'd never find the same strength, the same selflessness, ever again."

"But it isn't fair."

"Life isn't fair. Why should the afterlife be fair?"

"Because this place is about solving problems, finding closure."

"It is what it is. And Gene – he needs to be the hero. He needs to take care of his people. If he thinks that means making a noble sacrifice then he'll do...well." Nelson gave a small smirk. "What a man has to do."

"He's a bloody idiot," Alex grumbled.

"Sometimes. But don't belittle the choice he made. He made it for you, and he did that because he recognised that most of his recent choices have been for him."

She thought about this. It made sense. She should have seen it. She _would_ have seen it, had she not been trying to make sense of her three losses. And if she had, she'd have argued the point with Gene, out there in the bloody street. She'd have argued, and she'd probably have won.

"He took advantage," she said. "He knew I wasn't really thinking straight."

"He knew that the minute you found the will to argue, all his noble intentions'd be down the drain. Far as he was concerned, it was a small window of opportunity. Miss it, and he's the bad guy. In his eyes, anyway. The man who traps souls in limbo, not the man who helps the lost to find themselves. He didn't want to see himself like that."

"So he told me to go," Alex said. She felt herself about to crumple again, and she drew her shoulders back. "I don't want to be gone," she said defiantly. "Just because I'm not alive, that doesn't mean I can't feel."

"What's 'alive'?" Nelson asked. "There's people in this world that only exist because of the memories and thoughts and needs of Gene Hunt, and people like you and Sam and all the souls that pass through. Are they alive? They feel like they are. The stripper, Sally, who died in Gene's arms? The fireman who helped Ray let go of his shame? What about Caroline Price, the one you knew as an adult, here, two years ago?"

"How do you know all this?"

"Like I told you – I'm never far away."

Alex sighed and considered. "That wasn't really my mother," she said. "That woman was...memory. And-and wishful thinking, I suppose."

Nelson smiled. "She was real enough while she was here. She felt. I'd say that makes her matter."

She nodded. "I'd say so too."

"So what'll it be?" Nelson asked.

Alex frowned at her half-full glass. "I think I should call it a night after this, don't you?"

"That's not what I meant."

She gave a shiver and asked a question. "Can I still go back to him?"

"My rules, Alex. I say yes."

"Why?"

"Because he's a good man. And he's lost so much." Nelson rolled his eyes. "And – _man_ , it's a good thing he i'n't here right now – because I'm a hopeless romantic, okay?"

"But I can still move on if I choose?"

"These moments? They're all about free will."

Alex drew a shaken breath and let it out slowly. "I want to go back," she said out loud. It sounded less disconcerting than she'd anticipated. Maybe Nelson had eased her into it. "I haven't seen him for half an hour and I miss him." Nelson cocked a brow at her. In a whisper, she acknowledged a truth that she'd recognised in her mind but, so far, she'd refrained from giving voice to. "I love him."

The lights dimmed and a swell wrapped around her, of sound and atmosphere and humanity. She could pick out the strains of that old David Bowie classic, could pick out the lyrics: _"Take a look at the law-man..."_

The swell died, and the lights returned to normal. Alex blinked, then she panicked.

"No! No, I'm not ready–"

"Alex." It was Nelson's voice. She focused. "Calm yourself, now." He was smiling gently. "You're all right. My rules, remember?"

She exhaled hard, like she'd been running a race. "That was-that was it, wasn't it?"

"You set your baggage down."

"But that was supposed to be about Molly."

"You forgave yourself for Molly out in the street."

She frowned. Then she remembered Gene's gruff tone saying, "Way of the world, Alex. She'll be fine." She remembered acknowledging this as a hard, cruel, comforting truth.

"I didn't hear the music then."

"'Cause you had more baggage."

"And now?"

"Choice is yours, DI Alex Drake. Say the word and you get the celestial picnic. Otherwise? Door's over there."

"What if he doesn't want me back?"

Nelson smirked. "In 2010 a police DS will die at the hands of a Walthamstow drug-dealer. In 1983 that DS was seven years old and his mother – a single parent – died of a heroin overdose, leaving him at the mercy of the social services. And you thought you had issues?" He smiled, enough to show that he wasn't trying to diminish the traumas of her childhood. "His name is Mike Gilmour and he just walked into CID asking about his iPhone."

"He's the new me?"

"He's going to need help. And so is _mon brave_."

Alex finished her drink and stood up. She managed to remain steady on her legs, perhaps because half a bottle of wine wasn't really an inordinate amount of booze for her these days. These strange days.

"Will I see you again?" she asked Nelson.

"Count on it."

"But next time...?"

"You'll probably just be passin' through."

"Will I remember this conversation when I leave the pub?"

"Every last word. You don't forget the things as 'appen after you've had your moment."

Alex hesitated, because another question had occurred to her and she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. "Will Gene forget? Again?"

"As much as he can, with you still in his life."

"Death."

"Ah, pot-ay-to, pot-ah-to."

"Right." She sighed. "Well maybe that means I shouldn't go back. I'd just be a-a reminder of...unpleasantness."

"He's seen his own corpse, Alex. Ain't the kind of thing a person forgets."

She nodded, placated. "Okay. One more question."

"Got nothin' else on," Nelson said and held his arms wide, gesturing the empty pub.

"Jim Keats. Who was he? Originally?" At Nelson's quirking brow she said, "No, I mean, he had to have been a man once, right? If the devil and his demons have no power in purgatory, the devil needed to send an agent. So what was he? _Is_ he? I mean, a-a soul that got a holiday from hell, or something?"

Nelson stood up, and his dreadlocks swung back over a shoulder. The exotic Caribbean took precedence over north west England when he spoke. "He was a man once. A young copper, got shot on Coronation Day."

She frowned. "I don't-I don't understand."

"Yeah, I know, got the whole 'two places at once' thing occurrin'. Confusin', right?"

"So how–"

"Devil offered him a world. Gave him the know-how to make one for himself."

"Yes, we went through this. A world that was supposed to turn grey souls to black, but it didn't work."

"That was the reason. But the devil don't do nothin' without a bargain gettin' struck."

Alex felt a shiver, and her eyes widened. "Oh, no. No, oh god–"

"I's a' right. Devil took a sliver o' that soul, no more. Couldn't take more. Without a soul, Gene Hunt had no place in purgatory. No Gene Hunt, no Gene Hunt-world, no blackened souls. So it just took a sliver."

"And out of that sliver the devil made Jim Keats?"

"Explains a lot, doesn't it?" Nelson suggested. "Devil took the parts he could use. A rigid sense o' justice. A need to punish. An obedience to bureaucracy."

"Gene still has the first two qualities on that list."

"Well, devil could only take a sliver."

Alex pinched her lips. "And this bargain – does that mean that Gene can only ever move on from this world...in one direction?"

"Souls are people," Nelson said. "In their most essential form. All that we are, all that we do, all that we strive for. Souls can be cleansed, and they can be stained. Souls can change. What you think all the fuss about redemption is about?"

"So he's all right, then?" she pressed, wanting to be sure of this more than anything in that instant. "If he moves on, it's to the good stuff?"

"He's a whole lot closer than he was."

Alex nodded. It was time for her to go where she was needed. "See you around, Nelson." She glanced at the bar and saw her empty glass. "Oh, god, sorry. Um – what do I owe you?"

"That? On the house." Nelson winked. "This is a lock-in. Friends only. I'd be breakin' the law if I charged you for your drink."

"And we couldn't have that," Alex agreed with a smile.

She turned and walked over to the door, and didn't look back as she opened it and stepped out on to a darkened east London street.

~~~

At half past nine in the evening the offices were quiet. The front desk duty officer nodded at Alex as she passed through the entrance. Alex wondered if he had a soul, and a need for closure. She made a decision in that moment: everyone she met here was worthy of her respect. Lost soul or echoed memories: everyone mattered.

Bammo passed her as she walked the familiar corridors of Fenchurch East. "Night, ma'am," he said. She returned the pleasantry. It was as if nothing had changed, these past couple of days.

Maybe nothing had, in the grand scheme of things.

She pushed open the door to CID and only Terry was still present in the outer office, standing over his desk and shuffling papers in his in-tray for tomorrow. Her eyes went to the Guv's office. The sight of Gene standing within, large as life and twice as irritated, stung her eyes.

Someone was in there with him. A tall man, early to mid thirties, fair and wearing an expression of confused outrage.

Ah, she remembered it well.

The Guv was in full-on bellow mode. She could hear the words easily through the closed inner office door.

"I-phone? What the hell is it with you and this I-phone, Gilmour? I-phone, you-phone, we all phone for I-phone?"

Alex snorted a laugh. "Ice _cream_ , Guv," she muttered. "We all scream for ice cream." Terry caught her eye and shared the humour with her. Then he collected his jacket from the back of his chair and glanced once more at the inner office.

"Glad you're back, ma'am," said Terry. "Think the Guv's got his hands full there."

"Have a good night, Terry," she said.

"You too." He smiled at her and then left.

Alex squared her shoulders and marched up to the door to Gene's office. In the split-second that his eye noticed the movement and focused on her, all the shouting stopped. It was almost comical, the way he froze in shock. The other man – Mike, she remembered – turned to look at whatever his bellowing DCI had seen.

She grasped the handle and opened the door.

Time slowed for a moment as they looked at each other. Alex caught her breath. This was how it felt to be in love. Why hadn't she known it sooner? So much had got in the way.

"Who the hell are you?" Mike Gilmour asked when the silence had stretched too long.

Gene found his voice again. "Oy!" he barked. "Show some bloody respect, you mangy scrote. That is Detective Inspector Alex Drake, your superior officer. Two things you need to know about her. One – she's about a billion times cleverer than you are, so when she speaks you pay attention, got it?"

"I'm all ears," Gilmour said, only partly cowed.

"Good. Pin 'em back and listen up. Number two. Next time your eyes stray lower than her chin, I'll boot you out of this office so fast it'll take ten ruddy minutes for your eyeballs to catch up. _Comprende_?"

Gilmour's eyes widened, and he managed a small nod. Alex, meanwhile, was trying not to give in to the urge to tut-tut her exasperation. She arched a mild brow at Gene, just to remind him that she wasn't going to be a party to his chauvinism. Women had come a long way in the last few decades; they did not need men to pin badges of ownership to them. Gene stared back at her, steady and unapologetic. She wasn't sure whether she found it infuriating or sexy, and realised that it was probably a little of both.

Gilmour coughed. He'd been watching the two of them. He frowned and asked, "Aren't there rules about that? Fraternising?"

"There are," Gene said. "Luckily she isn't my brother."

"That's not–"

"Around here," Alex said, "the Guv's rules are the rules. You'll learn to appreciate that."

Gilmour turned his attention to her, and she noticed that he kept his eye-line good and high. "I have no idea what's going on," he confessed.

"I remember the feeling." She glanced at Gene and then reached to draw Gilmour out of the office. "It's Mike, isn't it?" He nodded. "Mike – I know it's confusing. Believe me, I know. It doesn't make any sense. And I'm here to help. But for right now, the best advice I can give you is to take your time. Do you have a place to stay?"

"Well of course I–" Gilmour stopped short and frowned, confused. "I don't–" He shook his head. "Um, what year is this?"

"It's 1983. You need a place to stay. Here." She handed over her key. "Over the road there's a restaurant. It's for sale. There's a side door up to a flat above it. That's my flat. Well – yours now. Use it as long as you need to."

Gilmour took the key. "All right. Um, where are you going to be? Er, ma'am?"

Alex smiled. "Where I'm needed."

"Okay."

"Go and get some rest. Try to settle. We'll see you in the morning. Nine o'clock sharp."

"Yes ma'am."

She reached to touch this newly lost soul's arm. "It'll get easier. You don't know it yet, but you've been very lucky. Of all the CID's in all the world, you walked into Gene Hunt's. And he's the best."

She heard Gene's breathing stutter behind her, but she couldn't look at him, not until she'd got Mike Gilmour out of the way.

"Thank you," Gilmour said, looking down at the key. "Um, see you in the morning then. Ma'am." He turned to Gene. "Guv."

"Touch her underwear drawer and you're a dead man," Gene said. He was leaning against his desk, arms folded, scowling at Gilmour.

Alex rolled her eyes, before remembering to smile reassuringly as Gilmour walked past her through the outer office, and the door swung shut behind him. She turned back to Gene.

"Well, Bols. Thought you had a better place to be," he said. His shoulders were heaving a little.

"There is no better place," she replied. She walked back to his office doorway and leaned there, trying to look as casual as she could.

"Never could follow a simple order, could you? You're a bloody anarchist, Drakey."

"And yet here I am, getting the annoying new boy off your back."

"I had that well in hand."

"You were shouting at him."

"My point."

She gave a laugh. "Difficult. Stubborn. Obnoxious–"

"Yeah, all right, we did that conversation once."

"I missed one out though. You were right about that."

"Oh yeah?" His expression was guarded, like he was hoping for the best and expecting nothing more than another insulting punch line.

Alex took a step closer. "Wonderful," she said, as steadily as her nerves would allow.

Gene straightened up, lifted his chin. He unfolded his arms and his hands found the edge of his desk. "Oh yeah?" he said again, like he was trying to encourage this train of thought.

"Trust me, Gene, that's all you're getting."

He sniffed. "That's not what the look in your eyes is saying."

"Sometimes they get a bit ahead of the rest of me."

There was a pause. Gene seemed to be lost in his own private thoughts for a minute before his shoulders lowered and he gave a small sigh.

"You're sure?" he asked.

"I had a nice long chat with Nelson." She lifted a coy shoulder and stepped nearer still. "It's the strangest thing. Turns out I'm in love with you."

Gene's jaw clenched and released. "You saved me," he said in a rough voice. "You kept this world from falling apart."

"I think it was worth it. _You're_ worth it."

"I'm not so sure." He heard his own words and tut-tutted. "See, this is what I was afraid of."

"That I make you honest? Unsure of yourself?"

"Yeah. That."

"You think it doesn't work both ways?"

"I don't know."

"Well, what about the, er, love?" Alex glanced up at him through her eyelashes, but she couldn't hold his gaze. "Does that work both ways?"

"You need to ask?"

"Apparently."

He held up a hand between the two of them: an invitation. Alex placed her own in his. Their fingers laced together. "Yeah," Gene breathed. "Yeah, it works both ways."

Alex nodded. "Then let's try the kissing again. Only this time, let's not make it 'goodbye'."

"Sounds like a plan, Bols."

He drew her into his arms and she reached around his neck. His head dipped down and he rested his brow against hers. They swayed together for a moment, as if they were slow-dancing once again. Gene shook his head barely perceptibly against her.

"Hell of a few days," he said.

"I'm sorry," she needed to whisper.

"Why?"

"He used me. And I should have trusted you."

"You trust me now."

"To the ends of this world."

He pulled back a little way and looked dubious. "Okay, how long's this going to last before you're back to arguing with every ruddy thing I say?"

"You like arguing with me."

"S'why I'm asking."

Alex smiled. "I trust you. I believe in you. Doesn't stop you from being an overbearing northern git. I don't think we'll be short of arguments."

"Only now I get to take you home after a day of arguing, have my way with you?"

"On those days I'm not busy having _my_ way with _you_."

Gene's eyebrow twitched. "You know something, Bolly-kecks? Things are looking up."

"Aren't they, though?"

"In fact some things are in imminent danger of pointing up."

She refused to react to lewdness that was intended to get a rise out of her. "That," she said, "is going to be very helpful in a short while."

"Not when I'm driving, it isn't."

"Too bad. I didn't come back for a quickie on your desk." She glanced away. "Not tonight, anyway." Alex looked back, teasing and flirtatious and revelling in those things.

His eyes narrowed into a glare, but it was less of annoyance and more of passion. "God, I missed you, Alex."

"I was only gone for an hour."

"Like I said. Missed you."

"You won't have to again."

"Good. Kissing?"

"Kissing."

He smiled: a rare, warm, human smile, not a hint of a scowl. Then he moved in slow, and they both caught their breath as their lips brushed. Soft, tentative, like they'd waited so long and come so close that they couldn't quite work out how to surrender. Another brush. Their gasps mingled. Alex curled her fingers in the hair at Gene's nape, and he gave a soft groan.

The sound was enough. They moved together, inhaling a sharp breath in the instant before their lips met properly. Contact was firm and still and frozen for a moment as they got used to the sensation, then Alex heard herself make a sound – a pleading, plaintive, abandoned murmur – and Gene's arms tightened and his lips moved over hers.

It felt good to be kissing without a hint of 'goodbye'. This was the kiss they should have shared two nights ago, had the devil not intervened. Alex's hands grew bold like her lips, and she pressed her body close to Gene. His hand slid up and down the curve of her back.

When she tore herself away, it was only down to a lingering need for privacy and a comfortable bed. "Gene," she whispered.

"Yeah. Home?"

"I've never seen where you live," she realised. She wondered why she'd never even thought about it.

"Don't see it that much myself. Pretty sure it exists though."

"Where are we going?"

"Westcombe Park. Over the river – journey'll take a quarter of an hour."

"Then I'll do my best to be patient."

Gene nodded and relinquished their embrace in favour of collecting his overcoat and keys.

"Can't promise my patience will last for long once we're through your front door, though," she added.

He gave her another of those passionate, burning looks, then he grabbed her hand and speed-walked for the outer office doors. When they hurried past the front desk, their hands still clasped and their intentions probably obvious to any who chose to look, the duty officer called a bland, "G'night Guv. Ma'am."

There were definite upsides to being in Gene Hunt country. Alex realised she was – for the first time in three years – happy.

She hoped the others were happy too.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my LJ/Dreamwidth journals in 2010. This version is updated.
> 
> This story references lyrics from the song 'Life on Mars', written by David Bowie.


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